Looking Back: Let there be water 01-20-2008

Published 6:00 pm, Saturday, January 19, 2008

(NOTE: This is part of a series entitled "Looking Back," offering interesting glimpses into Plainview history. Originated to coincide with the city's centennial, articles rely heavily on information gleaned from Herald files.)

By DOUG McDONOUGH

Herald Managing Editor

During much of the 1800s, the Texas High Plains was portrayed as a "Great American Desert" unfit for human habitation.

Until the Army campaigns against the American Indians in the mid-1870s, this section was largely left to Native Americans, Mexican Comancheros, massive herds of bison and a few hardy buffalo hunters.

Within the next decade, that harsh description was re-evaluated and the section was opened to settlement.

Like many early communities, Plainview was founded near a readily-accessible source of water. Z.T. Maxwell and E.L. Lowe planted their new town at a familiar landmark along the Mackenzie Trail  the Hackberry Grove beside the Running Water Draw.

With growth and the arrival of the railroad in 1906, Plainview became a key trade center for the region.

But just as demand for area farm produces was skyrocketing, the region entered into a drought, with rainfall dropping from 32.01 inches in 1905 to just 11.55 inches in 1910.

This drought helped stimulate interest among area farmers in the use of irrigation as a means of crop insurance, according to "The Slaton Well: The Beginning of a New Era" by Tim Powers.

A 1977 article by Herald Regional Editor Marie Harris noted that interest in the new development spurred the Plainview Commercial Club into action.

In 1910, a delegation led by club president J.O. Wyckoff visited an irrigation well near Portales, N.M., and returned to Plainview enthusiastic to investigate the possibilities of irrigation in Hale County.

J.H. Slaton, a local banker and farmer, agreed to enter into a contract with the club to dig a well on his farm, five miles west of Plainview. Slaton agreed to pay for the well, located just north of U.S. 70 and east of Ebeling Drive. A Texas Historical Marker was dedicated near the site on Jan. 23, 1977.

George E. Green and J.N. McNaughton began digging the well in late December 1910. However, before they could locate any significant water, funds for the project ran out. Wyckoff, however, gambled with his own money that the experiment would not fail.

Mary Lee Cox, in her "History of Hale County, Texas," offered this salute to Wyckoff: "His faith and vision helped to establish one of the most successful innovations for the farmers of the High Plains."

The headline of the Hale County Herald on Jan. 13, 1911, proclaimed the success of that first well by announcing "Plainview's Test Well Yields 1500 Per Minute."

With its success greatly exceeding its most optimistic projects, the well quickly became the center of attention and discussion for miles around. And it became a favorite place to visit.

That Herald article estimated the well was pumping between 1,500 and 1,700 gallons of water per minute.

Word of the Slaton Well immediately raised land values throughout the county. A number of people took their land off the market and Slaton declined a $100-per-acre cash offer on the newly-irrigated farm. Two years earlier, he had tried to sell the same acreage for $50 per acre, but had no takers.

Within six weeks of the drilling of that first well, Plainview hosted a water carnival and irrigation conference on the application and use of this newly discovered water source to enhance farming. And by that time two more wells were under construction.

J.E. Landcaster, a Plainview banker, was among those who recognized the significance of irrigation. He published an open letter in The Herald to Hale County farmers attempting to convince them that, "The time has come for the united effort of the farmers, merchants, bankers and all other businessmen to develop this country into one of the finest irrigation districts in the world!"

The Plainview Commercial Club appropriated between $5,000-$10,000 for publicity of irrigation wells, which reached a total of 14 by the end of 1911.

Land speculators used irrigation to stimulate the promotion of land sales in the "shallow water belt." Within two years, Plainview Commercial Club secretary Zenas E. Black estimated that some $5 million worth of area farmland had been purchased by people from outside the region.

By the end of 1913, some 40 real estate agencies were operating in Hale County, and many of these agencies brought in excursion trains loaded with homesteaders. The largest irrigation and land development enterprise was the Texas Land and Development Company, formed in 1912. Slaton was one of the trustees.

Interest in irrigation declined with above normal rainfall from about 1916-30. A 1930 census showed that the number of irrigation wells in Hale County decreased from about 250 in 1920 to just 170 in 1930.

However, the Dust Bowl drought began in 1931 and continued for nine years, forcing farmers to once again rely on underground water supplies for their crops. Between 1934 and 1940, the number of irrigation wells mushroomed from 296 to 2,180, according to "Land of the Underground Rain" by Donald E. Green.

George Green and his Green Machinery Company had a huge role in that development with his invention of the hollow shaft right angle gear drive in 1915.

According to Bill Cartwright, who was general manager when the company closed in 1985, Green's invention "enabled farmers to use automotive-type engines" to power their irrigation pumps.

"I would estimate, at the present time, there are about 4,000 irrigation wells in Hale County," Cartwright told The Herald in 1989. "I would say probably two-thirds of them were drilled by Green Machinery Co."

(Contact Doug McDonough at 806-296-1350 or dmcdonough@hearstnp.com)

CAPTION

File Photo/Plainview Daily Herald

WATCHING FIRST WELL: This large crowd of onlookers, dressed in their "Sunday best," are viewing operation of Hale County's first irrigation well drilled on the J.H. Slaton farm west of Plainview in 1911 by Plainview Commercial Club.